Leaving Berlin (29 page)

“Oh God,” Roberta said, faltering, grasping Alex’s arm for support. “I can’t.”

Ahead of them, the camp gate with a wrought iron
“Arbeit macht frei,”
beyond it acres of barracks arranged in a semicircle, the open
roll call field, electric wire fences and guards, men shuffling in the distance. For one surreal moment, Alex felt as if they had entered a newsreel. All of it still here. Russian now. They had changed nothing, except the guards’ uniforms. His throat closed. He’d never get out. Fritz was gone. His father’s money. Nobody would buy him out this time.

A guard pointed them toward a large building in the outer courtyard. “Administration Offices,” as if the camp beyond were a factory and the white-collar bosses had to be kept away from the soot.

The clerk, a thin stubble of hair over a broad Slavic face, had only rudimentary German.

“Kleinbard?” he said, a sneer in his voice that said “Jew,” a sound as familiar to Alex as breathing. Nothing had changed. New uniforms.

The guard consulted a log. “Counterrevolutionary activities. Do you want to apply to visit?” He held out a flimsy paper form. “You can fill it out over there.” He pointed to a table where a woman, white-faced, with the tight, forced calm before hysteria, was scribbling on a similar paper.

“Counterrevolutionary? What are you talking about?” Roberta said. “He’s a good Communist.”

The clerk handed her the form again, nodding to the writing table.

“I want to see the commandant. You can’t do this. I’m an American citizen.”

The clerk looked at her, his face a sullen blank. “It’s not you in prison.”

“Did Herb keep his passport?” Alex said.

Roberta shook her head. “He had to choose. He said, what difference did it make? The State Department was revoking it anyway. So he’s German.” She stopped midstream and turned to the clerk. “But where is he? My husband.”

The clerk cocked his head toward the camp, his only answer, then pushed the form toward her again. “If you want to apply—”

“How long does it take?” Alex asked. “Usually.”

The clerk shrugged.

“It’s in German,” Roberta said, looking at it. “German and Russian.”

“I’ll do it,” Alex said.

The woman at the table looked up. “They lose them. This is my fourth.” Her eyes cloudy, distant. “But they tell you if he’s dead.”

“Oh God,” Roberta said. “He’ll die here.”

“No he won’t,” said Alex calmly. “Here, help me with this.”

“What’s the use?”

“Then it’s on file. If you get somebody in the Party to intervene, he can say, we’re moving up your application. Like any office. Otherwise you’ll start over.”

“They lose them,” the woman at the table said.

On the way back they were quiet until they were out of the camp.

“Look at them all. Living right next door. All this time. Down the street. I said to Herb, how can you go to Germany? And he said, it’s Socialist now, it’s all different. But nothing’s different. My God, a concentration camp. But why?”

“Something going on in the Party.”

“But he’s
in
the party. It’s his whole life.” She kept walking, brooding. “My father warned me. How can you do such a crazy thing? But he’s not married to Herb, is he? So what do I do now? Take Danny and go home? And leave Herb? But what happens if I stay? What if they don’t let him out? What kind of job could I get, with a husband in jail. The Party would never—” She stopped, as if not saying it would make it go away. “I can’t go back and I can’t stay.”

“No,” Alex said, just a sound. He looked around. Modest suburban houses, just a short walk from the barbed wire, the sky a heavy gray again, the color of lead.

On the S-Bahn they stared out the window, not talking. Finally Alex turned to her. “But you kept your American passport? It might
be a good time to leave. For a while anyway. Until we know what this is. In case—”

“What?”

“In case they make trouble for you too. His wife. If anything happened, the boy would be on his own.”

Her eyes grew moist. “But nobody’s done anything. What did we do? He just wanted to be—part of it.”

At Rykestrasse, she asked him in for tea.

“I can’t really.”

“Please. I’ll go out of my mind alone. I’ll be all right after Danny gets home. What do I say to him? My God, what do I say?”

She busied herself with the kettle and cups, the familiar ritual.

“They don’t even say what you’re charged with. Just ‘Come with us.’ I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself. Like Nazis. Well, in the movies anyway.”

“What are these?” Alex said, trying to distract her, leafing through some architectural drawings on the table behind the couch.

“Schematics for the project. In Friedrichshain. You know it, that part of town?”

Alex nodded, thinking of the narrow gauge rail cars bringing rubble up to the park. “Stalinallee,” he said idly.

“Well, he won the war.”

Alex glanced over. A believer still, with a husband in prison.

“Thank you,” he said, taking the tea. “Two buildings. They’re both his?”

The pure geometry of the Bauhaus, white with lines of sleek horizontal windows, the inside presumably a model of efficient design, the old dream, postponed by the war.

“If they build them. There’s a stretch across from Memeler Strasse, he fit them both on the plot, to make a continuous line on the street. Beautiful, don’t you think?”

“But—?” he said, hearing it in her voice.

“But they want these.” She reached under the plans and pulled out a new set of renderings. “Wedding cakes, Herb called them. Oh God,” she said, putting a hand to her mouth, “do you think it’s that? He called them Stalin wedding cakes. In public. A dinner at the Kulturbund. With Henselmann, the other architects. He wasn’t the only one. I mean, everybody thinks they’re—well, look. Gorky Street. But that’s what they like. You have to work with the client. In the end it’s—”

“These are his drawings too?”

“No. He’s supposed to study them. Learn from them. Herb. Who can design something like this. You don’t think it’s this, do you? Making fun of the plans? I mean, in the end he’ll do it. You have to. Everybody was laughing, not just Herb.” She looked down. “Maybe someone reported him. Out of spite.” She raised her hands to her arms, crossing her chest, huddling in. “Oh God, what a place. I don’t want to stay here. Not anymore. But we can’t go back.”

“He could go to the West. A German. They take in any German.”

“The West? And work for all the old Nazis? Another Speer? No, thank you. This is the Germany he wants. You’re here too. You understand how he feels. You don’t go.”

“I’m not in Sachsenhausen.”

The boy came in just as they were finishing the tea.

“Danny, this is Mr. Meier. Also from the States.”

Danny raised an eyebrow at this, intrigued. “From New York?” he said, politely shaking hands. About Peter’s age, the same unformed features, hair falling into his eyes.

“California.”

Danny said nothing to this, reluctant to offer anything further, looking for his cue to leave.

“Mr. Meier’s a writer.” No response to this either. “Do you want something to eat?”

“Homework,” he said, lifting his satchel and then, at Roberta’s nod, “Very nice to meet you.”

Alex watched him go, a shuffling walk, as if he were kicking fallen leaves.

“He’s like that with strangers,” Roberta said.

“Mine too,” Alex said, his eyes still on the boy, suddenly wanting him to be Peter, an almost physical hunger. Just have him in the room. Not saying anything, maybe reading the funnies in the other chair while Alex flipped through the paper. Just there, in his presence. He turned to Roberta. “You have to think about him. What it’s going to be like for him. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

Roberta sat up straight, about to chafe at this, then sank back. “I know. But I can’t, not now. We have to get through this first. What do I say to him?”

What had Marjorie said? At least at first.

Roberta looked at him. “Please, I know I shouldn’t ask, you’ve done so much already, but you’re somebody there, at the Kulturbund. I mean, they give parties for you. You could get to Dymshits. He won’t talk to me but he’d talk to you. He’s the one who
invited
Herb. You too, yes? He’d at least listen. You don’t have to vouch for Herb—politically, I mean, if there’s some kind of trouble. You’re just concerned. There must be some mistake. Even some information—” She stopped. “I know I shouldn’t ask. But it’s not sticking your neck out or anything, is it? I mean, he hasn’t done anything.”

“Who?” Danny said, at the doorway again.

Alex looked at his face, grave and apprehensive, an adult’s face, what Peter’s looked like now too.

“All right,” he said to Roberta. “I’ll see what I can do.”

The Kulturbund was quiet, no crowds hurrying past Goethe up the marble stairs, no one sitting in the old club lounge where Fritz had told his stories. Even Martin seemed to be alone in his small office.

“Where is everybody?” Alex said.

“The flu. You know, the winter,” he said, evasive. “I’m glad to see you. Look at this.” He pointed to a tape recorder on a small table, microphone next to it. “You can be on the radio here. For Dresden, anywhere. No need to go there. We just send the tape. We’ve been waiting so long for this. It’s an expense, the trains. And you know the writers prefer—”

“I need a favor,” Alex said, breaking in. “If you can.”

“Of course.”

“An appointment to see Dymshits.”

“Major Dymshits? There’s something wrong?”

“Not with me. Herb Kleinbard’s been arrested. His wife is frantic. She’s been trying to get through—”

“It’s a difficult time,” Martin said.

“What do you mean?”

“The major—so many requests. He can’t involve himself. In Party business. The Kulturbund must operate—”

“What Party business? What’s happening?”

“Periodically, you understand, the Party must examine itself. A matter of self-criticism, usually. It’s easy for people to have failings. But if they go unchecked—” He paused. “As I say, a matter of self-criticism. In most cases.”

Alex looked at him. “You mean they’re arresting people. Not just Herb.”

“We have heard of several, yes.”

“Here? At the Kulturbund?”

“Yes, unfortunately. A difficult time. I was afraid when you asked that maybe you—”

“Then I wouldn’t be here, would I?”

“As you say.”

“But why would they arrest me? Why would you think that?”

“Forgive me, please. It’s not that I doubt your loyalty. Your commitment. No. You know how I admire your—”

“But you thought they might have.”

“The Party is examining comrades who have spent time in the West. Forgive me, I didn’t intend—”

Alex waved this away. “Who else? Besides Herb?”

“Older comrades. Sometimes, you know, they have the old ideas. A conflict, maybe. So a correction is needed.”

“Do you really believe this?”

Martin looked up at him, dismayed. “Herr Meier, please. How can you ask this? It’s important for the Party to remain strong.”

“By arresting Herb Kleinbard? What if it happened to you?”

He looked down. “I must perform a self-criticism, yes, but you must keep in mind—”

“You? You could write Lenin’s speeches.”

“Herr Meier, please.”

“God, it’s because of us, isn’t it? The time you’ve spent—”

“No, no.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex said quietly. “If any of this had to do with me. I never meant—”

“No, please,” Martin said, upset now, façade beginning to crack. “It was an honor to be of assistance to you. Your name was never mentioned. We are so pleased to have you here.” Recovering his poise, back on the job.

“You were happy to have Herb too. It must be a mistake. You know Herb.”

“Herr Meier, I can’t question Party decisions. How would that be, if everyone did that?”

Alex looked at him, the silence an answer.

“Who else? You said my name didn’t come up. Whose did?”

Martin looked away, embarrassed, as if he’d already seen Alex’s reaction.

“Comrade Stein has been arrested. And one of his editors. Not yours,” he said quickly.

“Aaron? They arrested Aaron? What for?” Seeing the soft, watery eyes, the ones that had glimpsed the Socialist future.

“I don’t know. They did not say. I’m expected to attend the trial, so I’ll know then. Let’s hope, nothing too serious.”

“There’s a trial? When?”

“Any day. We’ll be told. Someone has come from Moscow. A new man in the state security division. Saratov.”

“Saratov? So Markovsky was right after all,” Alex said, unable to resist, keeping the story going. He looked up. “What do you mean, we’ll be told? Are you testifying? Against Aaron?”

Martin said nothing, his face crumpling a little, as if he were in actual pain. Then he lifted his head. “I may be asked for an opinion. Of course, if I am asked—”

“You wouldn’t.”

“And you? What will you do if they ask you?”

Alex looked at him, time slowing in the empty room. Just a piece of paper in a file, signed. They wouldn’t call him, risk exposing him as a GI. The anonymous report would be enough, a paper trigger.

“It must be a mistake about Aaron,” he said weakly.

Martin looked up, miserable. “The Party doesn’t make mistakes.”

It was a short walk to Markus’s office, in one of the buildings the SED had taken over near the palace. The new unit must have just moved in because there were no names listed yet in the lobby directory.

“The new K-5. It was K-5 before,” he said to the desk clerk.

“Ah,” the clerk said, suddenly conspiratorial, nodding to the elevator. “On three.”

The doors, improbably enough, said Main Directorate for the Defense of the Economy and the Democratic Order, in fresh paint, not quite dry. A reception area with chairs, a typing pool, and a long corridor of offices. Markus’s secretary, not expecting visitors, seemed flustered, and Markus himself was annoyed.

“You’re not supposed to come here like this,” he said, drawing him into his office.

“I thought that’s the way you wanted to work it. A visit from an old friend.”